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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26756725">this pure cup of heaven</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson'>objectlesson</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works &amp; Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Domestic, Fluff, Gardening, Healing, Kissing, M/M, Mentions of PTSD, Post-Canon, Post-War</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 12:56:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,091</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26756725</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“Things will keep getting better, you know,” Sam assures him, stroking the corn-silk softness of his hair. “Just like the garden. Remember how many weeds there were when we first came back? The way the deer chewed the corn right down to the stalk? And now—now look at it! Just as lush as it was when Mister Bilbo lived here.”</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Frodo Baggins/Sam Gamgee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>145</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>this pure cup of heaven</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I asked my tumblr followers to send me cozy fall prompts for fictober, and this is the first one! From my dear friend Appoline, who requested pumpkins and garden-tending domestic samfro. This is a tiniest bit sad but mostly tender and hopeful. </p>
<p>anyway I love fall, please send me prompts at alienfuckeronmain on tumblr, my inbox is open!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the wind rattles through the vast oak standing watch over Bag End, it carries the scent of rain upon it. “I think a storm is coming, Mister Frodo,” Sam announces. Then he tightens his knitted scarf around himself with one hand, the other curled around the handle of his trowel as he uses it to gently layer leaf mulch between the carrots and turnips. </p>
<p>Frodo wanders up behind him, dwarfed by his own jacket since he has struggled to keep weight on since returning from their journey. His smile is untroubled though, and that <em>alone</em> is cause for celebration, Sam thinks. “A storm will be good for the garden, won’t it?” Frodo asks, resting a hand atop Sam’s head for a moment before letting his narrow fingers sift through the curls. It is nothing but a brief, sweet, idle touch, but it roils hotly in sam’s gut all the same. Sometimes he gets mired in the muck of remembering all they've been through: the orcs and the bloodshed and the terror and the scorching, sulfuric air at Mt. Doom. But other times, he realizes with an acute sense of tear-spurring relief that they made it <em>out, </em>and there is no need to keep remembering the horror of it all.They survived it and so did Middle Earth, and now they’re back in the Shire again. Tired and too thin, even a year after the fact, but <em>alive. </em>And <em>together, </em>which is the best part of all. </p>
<p>Sam brushes dirt from his hands on the knees of his well-worn trousers before looking up at Frodo, a soft smile tucked into the upturned corner of his mouth. “If the rain doesn’t come down too hard and damage the baby greens, then yes, it certainly will be. We are still recovering from that dry summer.” He is about to stand when Frodo drops down beside him instead, examining the neat rows of vegetables with a wide, prudent eyes. The garden at Bag End suffered somewhat in their absence, but Sam is nothing if not stubborn in his devotion, so it’s looking as good as new. Rows of kale and chard like a miniature green forest. Root vegetables growing fat and sweet beneath the earth. Squash and pumpkins, vines thick and spiny as they reach with eager tendrils. He watches Frodo’s blue eyes flicker as he extends his arm and smoothes his fingers down the ridges of a sugar-pie pumpkin, brows knitting together. </p>
<p>Sam frowns, because so suddenly Frodo looks worried, a slip of darkness eclipsing over his features like the threat of the oncoming storm. Or not worried… sad, maybe. Unstable, like a new sprout in fierce wind. “Is something the matter?” he asks, laying a hand on Frodo’s bony shoulder and squeezing. </p>
<p>Then Frodo turns to him, licking his lips in a pink flash of his tongue, eyes wet and full looking, reminding Sam of how the stream gets swollen to the point of near overflow after a downpour. “No, nothing at all is the matter, my dearest Sam,” he says, head tilting incrementally, dark hair fluttering in the damp, bitter gust that pushes past then. “And that—it’s odd, I suppose. I’m still getting used to it, to nothing being wrong,” he explains, covering Sam’s hand in his own and thumbing over his knuckles reassuringly. “We were so frightened for so long, and it feels like it’s still in my bones, sometimes. The fear. And I have to remind myself every day that this…<em>you…</em>are all real.” His smile is unsteady and fragile, a wavering thing like a reflection in troubled water, but it is a smile all the same. </p>
<p>Sam aches to see it, so he leans forward on his knees and catches the slick pink of Frodo’s mouth with his own. He tastes sweet, like the cider they shared this afternoon, but he also tastes salty, like tears unshed. That is how he is, now, and even if it hurts to lick up, Sam only loves him all the more for it.  He swallows Frodo’s ragged sigh before pulling him close, a fist in his tunic, nose buried in his hair. He is thinking about how very lucky they are not only to be alive, but to be in love. He thinks about this often, every day, every <em>moment </em>he can. It is the foundation upon which they can build a future on: the knowledge that being in love was not weakness, but the very thing that saved them. Saved the world. </p>
<p>His voice is muffled when he says, “very real, Mister Frodo. The most real of everything. I won’t be going nowhere, you know that, right?” </p>
<p>“It is all I know,” Frodo confesses. “It is why I can sleep at night. Why I can wake up in the morning.”  </p>
<p>And that warms Sam from the inside out like good brandy, hearing of sleep. Frodo was so tired when they first arrived back, but he could hardly sleep without lurching awake again and again in a slick of sweat, mind a mess of nightmares. Things are better, now, they've been better since summer when the sunlight seemed to stretch into every corner of his interior, and frighten the shadows to dust. Now, he snores and twitches and curls up close to Sam at night, his lips at his pulse, or else hidden in the ditch of his underarm. “Things will keep getting better, you know,” Sam assures him, stroking the corn-silk softness of his hair. “Just like the garden. Remember how many weeds there were when we first came back? The way the deer chewed the corn right down to the stalk? And now—now look at it! Just as lush as it was when Mister Bilbo lived here.” </p>
<p>Frodo sags into him more deeply, melting into a sigh. “It’s beautiful,” he agrees, reaching out and touching the sugar-pie again, finger pale against bright orange. “The pumpkins are lovely, Sam,” he says then, shaking his head in something like awe. “Just the loveliest thing.” </p>
<p>“You are the loveliest thing,” Sam corrects, pulling away so that he might stand, and offer his still mulch-dirty palm. “Come on inside nowMister Frodo, before we get wet,” he says. “We can mull some wine. I bought some oranges from the farmer’s market, big sweet ones, big as the moon.” </p>
<p>“Alright then,” Frodo says, smiling up at him like dawn breaking over the horizon. He takes his hand, and in the distance, the comforting rumble of thunder rolls closer, like a deep sigh. </p>
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